a really bad book

OK, on the way to the train station, desperate for something to read on the journey from Washington to New York and back the same day, I picked up what looked like a pretty good French thriller. The book is Empire of the Wolves, by Jean-Christophe Grange. It's been made into a movie in France, so how bad could it be, right? Actually it can be (and is) very very bad. The author is lazy (and can't blame it on the translator). Long passages of the story are told as if in a scenario, rather than dramatized as in a story. There are fuzzy leaps in the story and much melodrama. Plus some unbelievable plot points that are essential to the ultimately pointless tale that the author wants to pass off as a novel. I had hoped for something at least sort of noir (the French invented the word, after all, and have been producing both the film and fiction versions of noir in abundance). But this thing is laughabloe